“Blood Is on Your Hands”: Cease-Fire Protests Disrupt Biden Fundraiser

Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted Joe Biden’s exclusive multimillion-dollar fundraiser on Thursday, repeatedly interrupting the bougie event to criticize Biden’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.

More than 32,600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 75,000 wounded in Israel’s constant bombardment of Gaza since October 7. The majority of the victims have been women and children. Biden’s repeated refusal to call for a permanent cease-fire has become a major sticking point with Democratic voters, particularly younger people.

Protesters were able to get into Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Thursday night and repeatedly interrupted Biden as he spoke onstage with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. They shouted, “Shame on you!” and accused Biden of having “blood on your hands.”

Demonstrators also stood outside the venue and shouted things including, “Genocide supporter” and “Cease-fire now” as event attendees came and left.

The protests were organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and several other advocacy groups.

“We refused to be silenced,” Jay Saper of JVP said Thursday. “We will continue to raise our voices of dissent until Palestinians are free.”

The three presidents pushed back on protesters, trying to keep the focus on the dangers of a second Donald Trump term. Clinton argued that Biden cares about Palestinian self-determination and establishing two states in the region. Obama said Biden had the moral clarity to lead the United States during the war.

He also chastised the protesters, saying, “You can’t just talk and not listen. That’s what the other side does.”

Biden called to stop “the effort that is resulting in significant deaths of innocent civilians” in Gaza, although he still stopped short of calling for a cease-fire. He said he is working with Arab nations to find a solution to the crisis.

The protests somehow did not seem to dent the glitzy event, where entry fees started at $225 and the crowd was studded with celebrities. Biden raised about $26 million overall.

New York Representative Gregory Meeks, who attended the event, said the protests were “minor” and that he “didn’t think that marred [the event] at all.”

“It’s part of what our democracy is about,” he added.

Pro-Palestinian protesters have frequently interrupted Biden’s recent campaign events, which has reportedly prompted his aides to try to shield the president from the demonstrations. Their strategies include decreasing the number of attendees, avoiding college campuses, and withholding event locations from the media until Biden has arrived.

This has led to a proliferation of campaigns in multiple states urging people to vote “uncommitted” during the primaries to protest Biden’s policy on Israel. And while the pressure seems to have slowly started making an impact on the White House, Biden is still deeply unpopular among young voters as a result of his refusal to budge.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is going postal over accusations that Donald Trump tried to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 election results—literally. The congresswoman insisted Thursday that the U.S. postal service simply lost all the mail-in votes Trump would have needed to win, and all Trump was trying to do was find them.

Trump infamously was caught on tape in January 2021 begging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, the exact number Trump would have needed to flip the Peach State in his favor. Trump was later indicted for trying to interfere in the state’s election results.

But according to Greene, Trump didn’t mean “find” ballots as in “invent” ballots. He meant “find” ballots as in “literally find lost ballots.”

“When President Trump got on the phone with our Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and said, ‘Can you find the votes, where are they?’ He was basically looking for ballots, and these ballots have been ‘lost in the mail,’” Greene said on Steve Bannon’s podcast War Room.

“And so there was nothing wrong with what President Trump said. As a matter of fact, I think he’ll be vindicated easily by a lot of the work that I’m doing and the proof that I’ll be showing pretty soon.”

Greene did not specify what work she had been doing, what proof she expected to find, or when we can expect to see it. Unfortunately for her, her argument here has already been debunked—by Trump himself.

The full transcript of Trump’s call with Raffensperger reveals that the former president wanted to go through all of the ballots cast in Georgia and re-verify them. And in the process, he wanted to disqualify ballots cast for Biden until he himself took the lead.

While the Republican Party grapples with the realization that it’s losing elections thanks to its own extreme positions on abortion and IVF, one political candidate on the national stage has decided to go even more extreme on the issue.

Robert F. Kennedy’s vice presidential pick, Nicole Shanahan, has attacked in vitro fertilization for years, and is apparently doing the heavy lifting on more extreme conservative talking points on reproductive rights while Kennedy himself remains relatively quiet.

“It became abundantly clear that we just don’t have enough science for the things that we are telling and selling women,” Shanahan told the Australian Financial Review in February, referring to IVF. “It’s one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.”

Shanahan’s beef with IVF reportedly began when she was turned away as a candidate for the procedure, with a clinic identifying her as a poor candidate due to a prior diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome, according to an interview she gave to The New Yorker last year.

Since then, Shanahan has invested millions into research that offers alternatives to the procedure, including funding some truly wacky ideas, like examining the “effects of two hours of morning sunlight on reproductive health.”

Between 2020 and 2021, the 38-year-old gave $7 million to the Buck Institute, a biomedical research group, for “reproductive longevity and equality” and a “healthy and livable planet,” according to financial disclosure forms obtained by Politico.

“I try to imagine where we would be as a field if all of the money that has been invested in IVF, and all of the money that’s been invested into marketing IVF, and all of the government money that has been invested in subsidizing IVF, if just 10 percent of that went into reproductive longevity research and fundamental research, where we would be today,” Shanahan said in a Buck Institute webinar in 2021.

A prominent Georgia state Republican, who has repeatedly claimed the 2020 election was stolen, was found to have voted illegally nine times.

Brian Pritchard, the first vice chairman of the state Republican Party, violated state election laws when he voted illegally in nine elections from 2008 to 2010, a Georgia judge ruled Wednesday. At the time he cast those votes, Pritchard was still on probation after being convicted of a forgery felony in Pennsylvania in 1996.

Georgia is one of 15 states that bars people from voting until they have completed their sentence, including probation. Judge Lisa Boggs ordered Pritchard to pay a $5,000 fine for his illegal votes. He will also receive a public reprimand.

Pritchard told Boggs he believed he had completed his sentence when he cast the illegal votes. He said he was not aware that the Pennsylvania criminal court had extended his probation until 2011 for allegedly failing to pay $38,000 in restitution.

The confusing nature of the U.S. sentencing system is a real issue when it comes to voting rights. Multiple people, particularly Black people, have been charged for trying to vote while ineligible due to felony convictions. But Boggs said she did not believe this was the case for Pritchard.

In her ruling, Boggs wrote that she did not find Pritchard’s defense credible because he had appeared in court multiple times while his probation was extended. So he should have known he had not completed his sentence.

Pritchard, like many Republicans, has repeatedly insisted that the 2020 election was fraudulent, tipped in Joe Biden’s favor by thousands of illegal votes. No one, including investigators hired by former President Donald Trump, has found any evidence to back up this conspiracy.

Several members of the Michigan GOP—including the head of the party—made an incredibly embarrassing mistake about why a group of buses arrived at the Wayne County Airport.

On Wednesday, Michigan state Representative Matt Maddock posted a couple of photos capturing three buses waiting outside a hangar at Detroit Metro accompanied by a police escort. And the Republican didn’t waste any time looking for an answer before catapulting his theory into the social media stratosphere: It was the arrival of an army of undocumented immigrants.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Maddock posted on X, tagging the state’s GOP chairman, Pete Hoekstra.

A local radio host, Justin Barclay, also joined in on elevating the lie, quote-tweeting it with a side-eye emoji, which was then reposted by Hoekstra.

But the buses in question were actually arriving to scoop up a group of college-age American boys, better known as the Gonzaga men’s basketball team, who had just arrived by plane for March Madness.

After being roundly criticized—and thoroughly corrected—on the platform, Maddock doubled down on Thursday, refusing to admit that his unfounded allegation was completely incorrect.

“We know this is happening. 100,000’s of illegals are pouring into our country. We know it’s happening in Michigan. Our own governor is offering money to take them in!” Maddock wrote, referring to a controversial program, announced last month by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration, offering $500 subsidies to households that volunteer to shelter refugees. “Since we can’t trust the #FakeNews to investigate, citizens will. The process of investigating these issues takes time.”

Maddock also showcased he was far more interested in rummaging up trouble than finding a legitimate answer to his incensed query, brushing off the truth as if it were conspiracy.

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” responded one user.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock replied.